Moving to NY: Day 3 – Colorado & Nebraska

Day 3 started really early, despite us staying up late watching Ghost Whisperer on Netflix. Today our trip would take us to 458 miles to Geneva, Nebraska to visit my grandma on our way out to New York. I hadn’t seen my grandma since my parents and I drove out there nearly 5 years ago for my grandpa’s funeral, so a visit has been long overdue!

But first, we had a detour! One of my really good gaming buds who I met back in WoW while I was still in high school lives in Denver, so Mr. Envoy and I met he and his fiancé for breakfast before leaving town. We met up at a restaurant called Snooze, an A.M. Eatery because my friend said it was one of the best breakfast places around. Man oh man was he right!

The food was out of this world. They had just about everything you could think of for breakfast including a large variety of pancakes and even a pancake of the day!

I ended up ordering their Eggs Benedict (pictured left) and Mr. Envoy went with their Breakfast Pot Pie (pictured right). My friend wouldn’t let the waiter leave without us ordering a single pancake to split between us though, so we also got a chocolate chip pancake (pictured center).

My friend also really wanted us to try one of their 5 different kinds of Bloody Mary’s because they were so good, but since we had almost 500 miles to drive that day he knew we had to pass. But it’s good to know that their breakfast cocktails have such great reviews too! Maybe next time I find myself in Denver?

I really wish I would have known about this place sooner because apparently they have 2 of them back home in the San Diego area! Although if you don’t get there early enough you have a really long wait because they don’t take reservations. One of my friends back home said she tried to go once and it was a 2 hour wait! Yikes! But when your food is that good it is definitely worth the wait :)

Once breakfast was said and done Mr. Envoy said our goodbyes to my friend and his fiancé. Thank you for meeting us for breakfast while we were in town, and hopefully we can make it back to Colorado some time for your wedding!

We headed back to the hotel so we could finish packing up and get on the road. Before we packed up the cats I managed to get a picture of Arthas looking out the window and not flopping while I do it! Yay!

When we did pack up the cats they both were rather unhappy. Look at those faces! Those are the faces of cats that are so done.

Finally we were on the road to Nebraska! I said that with more excitement than it really needed though because this day of driving by far was the most boring one we had on the whole trip. Once we left Denver it was nothing but flat grasslands with trees intermittently thrown in.

To top things off my ankle was about as done with driving as the cats were (even though they fell asleep in the car and were done being upset – such good little furry travelers!). Even though I’d done really well in my physical therapy before I left the constant angle my ankle was in for the gas pedal was making it hurt really bad. But it definitely made me appreciate the fact that I ended up getting a Toyota Matrix XR because it has cruise control where as the base model does not!

After a few hours we finally made it to Nebraska and onto the I-80 East. Yay!

One thing I had been concerned about on this drive was getting pulled over for a speeding ticket. Mr. Envoy and I had been warned that cops in other states weren’t as lax as CHP back home, and that even going 5mph over the speed limit was not a good idea. So whenever we saw a speed limit sign we set our cruise control to it. We figured it was best to play it safe since we both have California plates on our cars and we figured we’d not only stick out like sore thumbs in the other states but that a cop might pick on us more because we’re from California and everybody speeds over there.

Oddly enough we did stick out like sore thumbs, but not for speeding. Everyone was going about 10mph faster than we were! And here we thought California was the speeding state… Guess not lol

We stopped for lunch at Arby’s and dessert at Dairy Queen in Ogalalla, Nebraska (yes, that’s really it’s name lol). It was hot out so Mr. Envoy and I each sat in our cars with the a/c running as we ate our lunch and ice cream so the animals stayed cool. Did I mention how good all the animals had been on the trip so far? Because if not I need to tell you all again. They were SO good! The pigs didn’t make too much noise, aside from when they’d wheek at each other for getting in their way lol And the cats just slept and slept and slept!

After a long and boring drive we finally made it to my Grandma’s house. We got in around 8pm because we ended up losing another hour somewhere east of Ogalalla, Nebraska, but it didn’t start getting dark until around 9pm there so it was thankfully still light out when we unloaded the cars.

It was so nice to finally be at my grandma’s house. She told us she had been watching the driveway for a while waiting for us to get there, but she finally had to stop because she figured her watching the driveway was akin to a watched pot never boiling lol

Can you believe my Grandma is 90?! She doesn’t look or act like it at all!

After we unpacked, got the animals all settled in, and my two harps unloaded, we had some sandwiches for dinner, a slice or two of the delicious homemade apple pie my Grandma had made for us and I chatted with my Aunt that I don’t get to talk to very often.

For once we could actually truly relax because we knew we didn’t have to get up early in the morning to get back on the road. I think that night was the best night of sleep we got on the road that whole trip just because we knew we could be lazy, and Mr. Envoy and I are all about lazy :P

Before we actually headed to bed though I showed Mr. Envoy some of the old family photos my Grandma had around her house. I showed him pictures of my mom and dad, of my siblings when they were little, of me when I was little, and of my Grandpa. I even found some pictures of my dad when he was younger.

My dad’s high school graduation photo – from 1963!

It was a good day, but I was so looking forward to the next one because I had the whole day to visit with my Grandma before we got back on the road and finished our move to New York.